Cricinfo - Blogs - Different Strokes - An aggressive makeover

It is rare indeed to hear a commentator refer to a fielding captain as being too aggressive with his field placings. It’s almost always the case where commentators are advocating more catchers or more fielders in the circle. In almost every ODI game, there is a period when the captain has the minimum four fielders in the circle and the commentators reckon they should block up the singles. More often than not, it happens as a new batsman comes to the crease. From the commentary box or studio, there seems to be a general consensus that giving away the easy single, especially down the ground to the spinner, should not be allowed to happen.

Yet, many of these commentators probably did exactly the same thing when they were playing the game (apart from Warne who always had a reputation for keeping the field in). Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton were probably fairly conservative types, Ian Botham and David Gower played in different eras under slightly different playing conditions and Michael Holding rarely worried about dropping sweepers back when he was thundering missiles down at 99 mph. Across other networks, Sunil Gavaskar and Geoff Boycott were hardly the most attacking players or captains, wonderful batsmen though they were. I won’t go through the entire list from around the world but I’m sure you get my drift.

It’s probably not a deliberate ploy to belittle the current captains. Instead, perhaps watching the game from a different angle or height and not being caught up in the pressure of being a combatant subconsciously allows us to be a lot less conservative. Even in Test cricket, you rarely hear a commentator analysing a field setting as being ‘too attacking’. They’re forever bemoaning the lack of an extra slip or a short-leg. The current fashion of dropping a cover sweeper out relatively early in the game is one that is very rarely applauded by the armchair experts. I must confess to agreeing with them on that one!

Warne is the surprise package of the summer for me. Much to my surprise, his commentary has been insightful, fair, eloquent and balanced. For someone who did not necessarily show such maturity in some aspects of his life, his on-air persona is a very marketable entity. As the most recent cricketer on the commentary team, he sometimes seems to be the most forgiving of captains who go on the defensive, although it is clear that if he was bowling, things would be a lot different!

I haven’t quite had the time yet to see if the bowlers or batsmen lean more towards aggression when they commentate. Mikey Holding of course is clearly in the camp of those who believe in the ‘attack, attack, attack’ philosophy but his pedigree and background may explain that. To be fair to Botham, he always played his cricket that way too but when it comes to the mere mortals like Hussain, Atherton, Mark Taylor, Bill Lawry, Sanjay Manjrekar, Ramiz Raja, Kepler Wessels etc, it will be interesting to listen to them over the next few months and see if they advocate a slightly different philosophy with microphone than with bat in hand.

At least that will give me something to focus on during those middle overs of an ODI when the field drops back and the game goes into a bit of a holding pattern until the Powerplay is taken. Now there’s one thing I agree 100% with the commentators on – why do they leave the batting Powerplay so bloody late?

Oh God yes. These guys are FOREVER asking for field changes, as though where you put fielders is the only thing of importance in cricket. I like bowlers as commentators because they often talk about what the bowler is doing or should be doing. To me the bowler/batsman matchup of wits, tactics and execution is far more interesting than whether there is a gully instead of a mid wicket. And the current bone of contention: the batting powerplay in ODIs. You can bet that in almost every over from 30 overs on they'll be talking about it.

I do like how they aren't too serious and can laugh at themselves occasionally, but the real issue with commentary now is there are too many ex-captains, commentators are forever trying to sound smart and they don't try to teach viewers about the game anymore, it's all about suggesting what the captain should be doing. They don't even give reasons for what the current captain is doing, they just question it and it's getting old...

I am sure you would not want to hear commentators say, "well, the captain shouldn't do anything here, he should just maintain his present field and bowler"...of course they have to come up with something in six hours of cricket. That is why we love cricket, the tactics never end. You can never run out of ideas; my favourite is Shane Warne, because he at least puts a number out there, like, "well 330-350 looks like the score" etc, and he is usually pretty close, I wish more commentators would be braver predicting the score of the first or second inngs instead of talking about fielding. Put a number out there and see how close you get, fellas, then we'll see who is the smartest, we all do it at home, so why can't they do it on the air? I still miss Boycott, though, and I cannot stand the giggling Bumble.

I think you're right to highlight this tendency, and I agree with your assessment of Shane Warne's contribution.

My favourite commentary moment of the summer, though, was when Michael Holding addressed his colleague (I think it was Nasser) and said:

'You know the one phrase I hate: "the modern way". I cannot believe that the game has changed so much that "the modern way" is always to be so defensive".

Even through that wonderful Jamaican lilt, you could hear the contempt and despair in his voice. Brilliant.

(I think it mighht have been during England's rather feeble attempt to get rid of Australia's tail-enders on the third morning at Lord's, when Strauss kept applauding Broad for bowling short and getting tonked through the empty third man region over and over again)